1. In Deirdre Breakenridge's article PR 2.0, Brian Cross discusses how changes in technology will change the function of PR practitioners. In what ways do you think public relations will change and what role will PR professional's play in these changes?
Technology is a variable amongst everyone’s job that changes almost daily. Social media more specifically creates a new realm of PR and allows a more direct relationship between the brands and consumers. Ultimately, public relations is about the relationship between people and their products/companies/brands. Companies can now learn off hand if their consumers are not happy with their product. The fact that the consumer can post that online through a network and allow the world to see just makes the reaction time have to occur that much faster. For example: Perez Hilton , a internet famous blogger about celebrities, used his blog and Twitter to showcase to the world how awful his cellphone network was. This use of technology calls for T-mobile’s PR team to not only keep up to date with the current blogs and tweets of their customers but also act fast. Perez Hilton receives a crazy amount of hits to his blog and when readers read the problems he is having, he automatically gains support from his fans!
2. In Wikipedia: The Truth in Numbers the message seems to be: no longer do the victors write the history books, we do: you, me, and everyone else. How is social media (Twitter, blogs) forwarding this idea? What gives someone authority to "write history" and why should we listen to them? Is there a hierarchy of authorities? ie. is what someone like Seth Godin says more important? What should be taken as canon?
Lets be honest, we love to hear about other people’s lives. Social media is just another way to read up on what people are doing and allow the masses to join and create communities. Even though blogging and tweeting are increasing in numbers, it should really be quality over quantity. There is so much junk out there! I don’t really believe that much history is being written but rather just garbage. I just goggle searched what would come up if I searched “blog about nothing” and over 9 separate blogs showed up! I do think that people more and more these days are inputing their say but what really matters is who is listening. I believe credentials, education and experience are what would give someone authority to write on a topic but that’s just my opinion. A lot that is being written in numbers really should not be compared with the victors who write history books. Its interesting to notice how those blogs or tweets that are so excessively used seem to gain some credit somehow. I guess no one ever thought a show about nothing, Seinfeld, would be that interesting either.
3. McLuhan used a model with four elements surrounding the term MEDIUM. Touching on the four elements, describe how this model can help us in interpreting social media.
Enhancement: Social media amplifies what is written in a blog or tweeted by the amount of people that are affected by it and can read it. Our thoughts, feelings and emotions aren’t just kept to ourselves anymore; they are enhanced into the online world.
Obsolescence: Social Media as a medium makes written and publicized work obsolete. Should I even mention the amount of magazines that are becoming bankrupt? There is even a magazine deathpool website!
Retrieval: Being able to retrieve information at any point in time has never been easier, heck I even googled this guy to get the answer to this question and guess what came up first? Wikipedia!
Reversal: Looking at social media brings you back to the days when the voice over the radio was what you heard and where you got your information from. These days it is ever so prominent to listen to the voice of the little bird, tweet, tweet.
4. Who is Jamie Zawinski? How is the role he played & are design principals he helped spread important to you?
Zawinski is a computer programmer who developed cool things like Mozilla and Netscape. He is also known as JWZ and now owns a nightclub in San Francisco. Jamie Zawinski is important to me because he helped bring this thing, world wide web to us all! It is great for so many reasons and I just don’t know what we would do without it! We wouldn’t have this class… or this midterm… maybe I hate him???
5. What kind of conversational patterns can you expect to encounter using social media as a PR professional? What will consumers of your content expect? How can you level these expectations?
I think the conversation patterns are going to be more less consistent or constant rather than patterns. I think using social media as part of your PR professional career you are working all the time, when you are out of the office, at home or even at an event! I think consumers will expect to be updated with what is going on with the company at all times. Going back to my example with Perez Hilton, when his cell network was down, were probably looking on their websites for answers and didn't receive any! Was that bad PR or were they not on the job!?! Where do you draw the line... I think incorporating social media into your practice you practically having a baby, its with you until you die!!! Okay not that extreme, but you get the point :)
